Your Voice, Your Choice

Notwithstanding a tight economy, ASP.NET developers remain keen on third-party products, as evidenced by the participation in the 2009 asp.netPRO Readers' Choice Awards voting. This year, the asp.netPRO community cast more than 8,000 total votes on dozens of products in 25 categories, ranging from add-in tools to code editors to various components, controls, and specialized tools.

Old Favorites and a New Category

This year's voting results included many of the 2008 Readers' Choice Award winners, among them perennial favorites Developer Express and Telerik, taking the winner and runner-up positions, respectively, in the Charting and Graphics Tool, Component Set, Grid, Navigation Control, Online Editor, Printing/Reporting Tool, Silverlight, and Utility categories. Additionally, Developer Express took first place in the Add-in and Community Resource (for its DevExpress Community Site) categories, while Telerik won the Testing/QA Tool category with Telerik WebUI Test Studio (powered by ArtOfTest).

Offering a nod to the emergence of the Silverlight platform and its growing use among ASP.NET developers, asp.netPRO added Silverlight as a new product category in the Readers' Choice Awards. In this category, Developer Express, Telerik, and ComponentOne were readers' top three choices: Developer Express AgDataGrid Suite, Telerik RadControls for Silverlight, and ComponentOne Studio for Silverlight. About 43 percent of Readers' Choice Award voters chose a product in this category, a sign that ASP.NET professionals are getting more interested in Silverlight development tools.

Rising Stars

Notably, some new names appeared in this year's list of finalists. For instance, for the first time, DotNetNuke Professional Edition placed in the Content Management System category, taking the runner-up spot. Another newcomer to the winner's circle, 360 IMPACT's ASP.NET Auto Email, took first place in the Email Control category, beating out Advanced Intellect's aspNetEmail, which had won or received runner-up in the category for the previous four years. Other products appearing for the first time in at least three years among the list of Readers' Choice Award category winners include FarPoint Spread for ASP.NET (Honorable Mention, Grid); Applied Innovations and MaximumASP (Runner-up and Honorable Mention, Hosting Service); ASPSmith.com's ASP.NET Training (Winner, Training); and, of course, the three products winning awards in the Silverlight category.

The Vote That Matters

Ultimately, the vote that matters to ASP.NET vendors is whether customers ASP.NET professionals like you choose and stay with their products. The fact that a number of vendors have received Readers' Choice awards several years running bodes well for the reputation of these vendors and their products among asp.netPRO readers. As asp.netPRO Executive Editor Sheila Molnar mentions in her editorial this month, third-party vendors serve a vital role in enhancing and extending the basic foundation that Microsoft has laid with its products. But you, the developers, are the actual users and ultimate beneficiaries of these tools. As such, your voice and your choice of this year's Readers' Choice Award recipients is the one that matters the most.

Category

Winner

Runner-Up

Honorable Mention

Add-in

Developer Express CodeRush for Visual Studio .NET

JetBrains' ReSharper

Madinina Software's CodeObject for Visual Studio .NET

Charting and Graphics Tool

Developer Express XtraCharts Suite

Telerik RadChart for ASP.NET AJAX

Dundas Chart for .NET

Chat Application

Xigla Software's Absolute Live Support .NET

CuteSoft Components' Cute Chat

Web Furbish's JaxterChat ASP.NET Chat Control

Code Editor

IDM Computer Solutions' UltraEdit

Helios Software Solutions' TextPad

SlickEdit Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio

Communications Tool

/n software's IP*Works!

Dart Communications' PowerTCP for .NET

Catalyst Development's SocketTools .NET Edition

Community Resource

DevExpress Community Site/Developer Express

The Code Project

Microsoft's ASP.NET Site

Component Set

Developer Express DXperience ASP.NET

Telerik RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX

ComponentOne Studio Enterprise

Content Management System

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Web Content Management

DotNetNuke Professional Edition

Telerik Sitefinity CMS

e-Commerce Package

AbleCommerce Asp.Net Shopping Cart

AspDotNetStorefront

Corporate Web Solutions' .netCART

Email Control

360 IMPACT's ASP.NET Auto Email

Advanced Intellect's aspNetEmail

/n software's IP*Works! S/MIME

Forum Application

Telligent Community Server

BV Software's DotNetBB Forums

Active Modules' Active Forums

Grid

Developer Express ASPxGridView

Telerik RadGrid for ASP.NET AJAX

FarPoint Spread for ASP.NET

Hosting Service

DiscountASP.NET

Applied Innovations

MaximumASP

IDE

Microsoft Visual Studio

Delphi Prism

Sun Microsystems' Sun Studio 8

Navigation Control

Developer Express ASPxNavBar

Telerik RadMenu for ASP.NET AJAX

ComponentOne Menu for ASP.NET

Online Editor

Developer Express ASPxHTML Editor

Telerik RadEditor for ASP.NET AJAX

Infragistics NetAdvantage for ASP.NET WebHtmlEditor

Polling Tool

CodeWidgets.com's Online Voting/Survey Web-App

PeterBlum.com's Peter's Polling Package

Printing/Reporting Tool

Developer Express XtraReports Suite

Telerik Reporting

GrapeCity-Data Dynamics' ActiveReports for .NET

Project Management/Defect Tracking

Axosoft's OnTime 2009

Fog Creek Software's FogBugz

Seapine Software's TestTrack Pro

Scheduling/Calendar Tool

Developer Express ASPxScheduler

Telerik RadScheduler for ASP.NET AJAX

ComponentOne WebSchedule/WebCalendar

Security Tool

PreEmptive Solutions' Dotfuscator

/n software's IP*Works! SSL

Novalys's Visual Guard for .NET

Silverlight

Developer Express AgDataGrid Suite

Telerik RadControls for Silverlight

ComponentOne Studio for Silverlight

Testing/QA Tool

Telerik WebUI Test Studio (powered by ArtOfTest)

Red Gate Software's ANTS Profiler

AutomatedQA's TestComplete

Training

ASPSmith.com's ASP.NET Training

Telerik Training

AppDev Training

Utility

Developer Express ASPxSpellChecker

Telerik RadSpell for ASP.NET AJAX

CodeSmith Tools' CodeSmith

Anne Grubb (anne.grubb@penton.com) is web and developer strategic editor for asp.netPRO, Windows IT Pro, SQL Server Magazine, and System i NEWS, and editor of the asp.netNOW newsletter.